Unlikely
by bubbline
Summary: Bonnie feels as if she has lost everything, and has never felt lower in her life. Just as she thinks she can take no more, she finds an unlikely friend in the eleventh grade misfit, Marcie. Their friendship grows stronger and stronger, and Bonnie begins to wonder where it will lead. ((This is an AU fanfiction. It takes place within a regular high school.))


Chapter One

Bonnie's pigtails were uneven and limp, her white sneakers were covered in dirt, and her French tips were already chipped—and the football game was in two hours. Two! Luckily, she managed to untangle her pom-poms with enough time to scrub her shoes with a wet rag in the girls' locker room.

She was early—definitely early. The game didn't start until 5:30, but she liked to sit in the empty locker room, where every move she made echoed off of the walls and bounced back to her. Sometimes she would sing to herself when she was in a particularly good mood.

Today, though, there was no singing, just exasperated huffs from the disgruntled cheerleader as the relentless dirt clung to the shoes.

Bonnie suddenly caught a whiff of something—was it smoke? Was there a fire? The sneakers forgotten, she wandered to the far end of the locker room, which was walled off by a long row of lockers. The smell got stronger as she got closer, and became more distinct. No doubt about it, it was the unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke.

She rounded the corner to find Marcie, the eleventh grade misfit, slouched against the wall with a lit cigarette drooping lazily out of her mouth. Bonnie would have been surprised had this not happened before.

She shot Marcie a disapproving look and stalked away. "Sorry I'm ruining your fresh air, Princess," she called to Bonnie's back. "I just really needed a cig."

_Princess?! Really?! What is this, third grade? _Bonnie thought angrily. She chose to ignore her, and did not give her any kind of reply, instead just returning to the still-soiled sneaker.

There was a shuffling of feet in the back of the room, and the stench of smoke got nearer to Bonnie. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You're a bit early, aren't you?"

"Why are you even here? I never pegged you as the football type." Bonnie began scrubbing the shoes with much more vigor than before.

Marcie leaned against the wall now and flicked her cigarette. Her shirt was too baggy on her, and the neck of it slid down her shoulder. "Me? Yeah, I'm a total football buff. Love it." She laughed and took a long drag on the cigarette before continuing. "Nah, I'm just messin'. I come here sometimes when I don't want to go home yet."

Bonnie scoffed. "Okay," she said rudely. "You're not even allowed to be in here—especially if you're going to be doing _that_." She eyed the cigarette with disgust. "I call those cancer sticks; it's a much more accurate name."

It was Marcie's turn to scoff. "You think I care about cancer?" she breathed a puff of smoke in Bonnie's direction. "Hell, I'm just waiting to die."

And with that she sauntered from the locker room, leaving Bonnie with some sort of stone in her stomach. But the feeling was fleeting, and Bonnie continued cleansing her sneaker without a second thought.

However, as the last bit of dirt had fallen into the sink, Marcie's words crept sneakily back into Bonnie's mind. How calmly and coolly she had said, "I'm just waiting to die." How matter-of-factly she had walked from the room. Bonnie decided she must have been crazy.

She began working on fixing her curly, blonde pigtails and by the time she had finished, the final thought of Marcie left just as the other cheerleaders arrived.

The head cheerleader, Faye, walked purposefully over to Bonnie, scaling her up. "Are you even going to do your hair?" she asked rudely. "This is the biggest game of the season. For one, it's the homecoming game. Secondly, it's _Musclemen High School._ Do you know how long I've been waiting to put the Musclemen cheerleaders in their place?" Bonnie shuffled awkwardly back to the mirror and began un-doing her pigtails once again. "You know exactly how long, and you've got the _audacity _to show up looking like that?" The other girls looked on with sympathy in their eyes. They had all been subject to Faye's rage.

Bonnie wrapped the hair tie around her second pigtail. "There—is that better?" she asked tentatively. "It's been a long day," continued Bonnie, hoping that would soften the cheer captain's mood.

She shrugged, irritated. "Yeah, whatever. I guess that will do." She pivoted to face the rest of the girls. "Let Bonnie be a lesson to you. Don't show up to an important game looking anything less than perfect." They all nodded nervously. Faye paused, as if for dramatic effect, before bellowing, "Let's go, girls."

The bleachers were packed, to no one's surprise. People sat shoulder to shoulder, screaming wildly and recklessly. Bonnie thought, as she took her spot in the cheer line, that she might go deaf if they kept this up. But she lived for this.

"Positions, ladies!" Faye yelled over all the commotion. All the girls stood, feet together, hands on their hips, with a wide smile plastered to their faces. They began by doing a simple cheer, almost as an introduction. As the game progressed, they began performing more difficult routines.

Just as Bonnie was doing her prized hurkey, her eyes locked with, of course, Marcie's. She was mocking her—throwing her hands around as if she were cheering, and then laughing with her friends. When she caught on, Bonnie was seeing red. She lost track of what step the other girls were on, and was unable to keep up. Marcie laughed even harder.

_The nerve! _thought Bonnie as she clapped her hands a full second behind the others. Marcie clapped wildly, clearly imitating Bonnie's own mistake. She wanted to scream and storm off of the field.

The remainder of the game went on in quite the same fashion. The torture ended when Marcie stalked into the locker room, no doubt in need of another cigarette. With her gone, Bonnie's performance improved noticeably. Although Marcie's friends were still laughing hysterically, no one was mocking her outwardly.

When, at last, the game had ended, Faye grabbed Bonnie's arm in fury and pulled her to the locker room.

As the last few girls trickled in behind, the door eased closed and it began. "What the _Hell _were you doing out there?" Faye yelled. The other cheerleaders shrank into their skin and pretended they didn't hear her loud, fearsome voice. "You think people didn't see you fuck up, Bonnie? That's all they could look at! Your steps were off, you hardly cheered at all, and you couldn't even _clap _on time." She let out some kind of scream and continued on. "Not only did you show up looking like _that_—no, that wasn't enough for you—you made an ass out of me, and the rest of the squad!" She motioned to the other girls, who were busy shoving their belongings into their duffel bags. No one said a word. "Don't even bother coming to practice on Monday, because you're kicked off the squad, Bonnie."

She tried to protest—she wasn't above begging—but Faye cut her off harshly. "No, that's it. That's the end of it." Faye shooed the rest of the girls out, and as she was leaving she turned around to say, "Oh, and I've been fucking Finn for two months now."

Bonnie stared in disbelief as the door closed behind them. The locker room was quiet now, and she let herself sob silently on the wooden bench as she packed up her belongings. The cheer squad was all she had. It was the only reason people even knew her name. She knew she could not just rely on her perfect grades to get friends—if you could even call the other girls friends. And surely, now that she was no longer a cheerleader, Finn would want no part of her. _Why would he want me when he's got Faye? _she thought bitterly.

Then she heard soft footsteps. Bonnie jumped and looked around her, wondering which girl had stayed back just to see her break down. Next came the unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke.

"Woah, that was a bit much." Marcie walked around the corner, her eyebrows raised. She walked as if she were in a minefield and feared setting off any bombs. "You okay?"

Bonnie groaned and turned away. Had she been here the whole time? "Oh, shut up. It's your fault this happened in the first place. If you wouldn't have been making fun of me, I wouldn't have been so distracted, and I wouldn't have messed up the cheers so bad, and I wouldn't have been kicked off of the squad!" As she said it out loud, it hit her all over again, and a loud, ugly sob escaped from her. She clapped a hand over her mouth and threw her head back angrily.

Marcie laughed. "What, it's my fault Faye's a complete cunt? Please." She sat down awkwardly beside Bonnie, and draped her arm over her shoulder. If Bonnie would have had the energy, she might have pushed her away. But tonight she could not be bothered. "If it makes you feel any better, Finn's got a thing for me, too." _How is that supposed to help me at all?! _Bonnie screamed inside her head. "I mean, he's not really sure what he wants. He's a high school boy. All he can think about are tits."

Bonnie actually giggled at this, but only a little. "And football. If I had to hear about one more of their plays I was going to shoot myself." She realized that she was talking in past-tense, as if she had already broken up with Finn. "He doesn't know I know, though."

Marcie smiled. "Yeah, you could have some fun." She gave her shoulder a small squeeze as Bonnie began conjuring up ways to get her revenge.


End file.
